Employers are generally required to pay superannuation contributions for all their employees.
This includes:
- full-time, part-time and casual employees
- all employees who are 18 or older
- employers who are under 18 if they work more than 30 hours in a week
- temporary residents like backpackers
- employees who also receive pensions while working.
Super must be paid regardless of how much the person earns.
The super guarantee
The super guarantee is the minimum amount of super a business or organisation must pay their employees and those independent contractors deemed to be employees for super purposes.
The super guarantee is 12%.
The super guarantee is the minimum amount of super a business or organisation must pay their employees.
Super is also a national employment system entitlement. This means that most national system employees can take action under the Fair Work laws or the super laws if their super payments aren’t right.
Be sure to read our general superannuation information too to learn about:
- Setting up to pay super
- What to do about unpaid or underpaid super
- Asking the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for a ruling if you’re not sure if super needs to be paid.
1. Get the employee’s details
To pay super to an employee, start by getting:
- the employee’s tax file number
- details of their super fund.
Most employees are eligible to choose their own super fund (and many will already have one).
Within 28 days of an employee starting work, employers need to:
- offer eligible employees a choice of super fund
- tell them their default super fund.
Ask the employee to tell you their choice of fund by completing a standard super choice form.
If the employee doesn’t choose a fund, request the employee’s stapled super fund from the Australian Taxation Office. A stapled super fund is an existing super account linked, or 'stapled', to an individual employee so it follows them as they change jobs.
Follow the steps to request stapled super fund details on the ATO website.
If the Australian Taxation Office tells you the employee doesn’t have a stapled super fund, pay the employee’s super to an account with your organisation’s default super fund.
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2. Check the fund is compliant
If the employee chooses a fund (or has a stapled super fund), check that their fund is compliant before making super payments.
To check that a fund is compliant:
- call the fund to ask
- use the Super Fund Lookup tool.
3. Work out how much super to pay
The super guarantee is currently 11.5%. It goes up to 12% on 1 July 2025.
Super is paid on ordinary time earnings. Ordinary time earnings is the amount an employee is paid for their ordinary working hours (including commissions and shift loadings).
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4. Pay super and submit data electronically
Businesses and organisations need to pay super and report data electronically. It must be done in a way that meets the SuperStream requirements.
Payments need to be made electronically by the quarterly due dates (or more frequently – for example, if the rules of the employee’s super fund require monthly payments).
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5. Keep records
Keep records to show:
- that you asked your employees to choose a super fund
- the super contributions you made to your employees.
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Visit the ATO’s website to:
More in this section:
About super
Superannuation (or super) is a type of long-term investment for retirement. Businesses and organisations must pay super to their employees – and to some independent contractors, entertainers and performers.
Super for independent contractors
Superannuation (or super) is a type of long-term investment for retirement. Businesses and organisations must pay super to some independent contractors, entertainers and performers.
